A landmark German ruling has bolstered equal pay rights for women after a court allowed specific salaries to be used as a benchmark for pay disputes.

The country’s Bundesarbeitsgericht – (BAG, the Federal Labour Court) – overturned a previous ruling after a female department head at Daimler Trucks had sued for equal compensation, after finding out she earned significantly less than a male counterpart performing similar work.

The state labour court for Baden-Württemberg had awarded the woman around 130,000, basing the compensation on the median salary of male department heads, but rejected her claim to match the top earner.

The federal court overturned that decision, clarifying that while median salary data may be relevant under the German Pay Transparency Act, it does not preclude the use of a higher-earning individual comparator. In this case, the existence of a significantly better-paid male colleague was sufficient to establish a presumption of gender-based pay discrimination, shifting the burden of proof to the employer to justify the disparity with objective, non-discriminatory reasons.

While the ruling may open the door for similar claims, German employment rules still limit the information available about colleagues renumeration.

Employment law expert Manfred Schmid of Pinsent Masons said: “Despite the ruling, employees still have no legal right to know a colleague’s exact salary, as the German Pay Transparency Act only grants access to median values.”

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